she lives in sin
by with the monsters
Summary: And this is your pattern or something. - -TessBrown.


**A/N**: I don't own Camp Rock. Disney does.

* * *

**she lives in sin  
**i kissed your honey hair  
with my grateful tears  
_- For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her – Simon and Garfunkel_

_

* * *

_

It's a broken flower stem crushed under bare feet and the scent of passion and a notebook with too many blank pages.

* * *

His fingers are soft against your skin like satin, the gentleness of his touch at odds with the roughness with which he is claiming your mouth, one hand on your back pressing you as tightly against him as you can get, the other wandering over your bare shoulder and tattooing an anthology of sin into your skin.

"You're too thin," he breathes, and your arms tighten around his neck as you dart up on tiptoes to get closer yet, pulling your head away from his slightly to look candidly at his flushed face.

"You're too _old_," you tease, and he grins and shrugs to accept the validity of the point and kisses you again, his touch suddenly a lot less gentle and a lot more urgent.

You yield gracefully, as you always do, succumbing to him and his experience and the way he makes you feel just by being close.

* * *

You awake before dawn the next morning (and this is your pattern or something).

You slip out from his embrace, wriggling from the bed with consummate skill and tiptoeing around the room to collect up your clothes, darting into his discarded shirt before padding on silent feet across to the door.

"I do wish you wouldn't do that," he complains from the bed, startling you into whirling around and almost losing your balance. "It makes me feel so _cheap_."

You roll your eyes and move over to place a chaste kiss on his lips, winking down at him as your hair trails onto his face and bare chest.

"You're screwing one of your campers," you point out validly as you head back over to the door. "You _are _cheap."

"Don't remind me," he groans, passing a hand over his tired face and then making a shooing motion. "Go on, get out before anybody sees you."

"Now you're making _me _feel cheap," you tell him plaintively, but he doesn't buy your sarcasm for a moment.

"Don't mock me," he says, tossing a pillow at you and laughing as it catches you in the hip. "And go back to your cabin."

"Yes, captain," you reply flippantly, saluting and lobbing the pillow back at him and then slipping out of the door before he can throw it back.

* * *

Your hair falls in a tangled mess into your face as you head back to your cabin, and you grimace as you push it back, dreading to think what you look like. Your worst fears are concerned as you round a corner and almost run down Nate Grey as he hurries in the opposite direction.

"Whoa, Tess, sorry," he apologises, grabbing you by the (_toothintoothin_) shoulders to steady you. "I didn't mean – isn't that Brown's shirt?"

He's distracted almost instantly, and you sigh for boys' general lack of focus, and the lie rolls off your tongue easily.

"Maybe. I don't know – it was in Lost Property and I liked the pattern so I took it."

He narrows his eyes at you and you stare back at him with your most innocent expression on, eyes wide and guileless. But then he shakes his head minutely and laughs awkwardly.

"I guess there's no other reason for you to have it," he muses, and you laugh (pityingly) and agree with him.

"Yeah – what would I be doing, conducting an illicit affair with the camp director?" you joke, and you take childish delight in your superior knowledge as he snorts as though the idea is absurd.

"Yeah, you're right," he grins, and then pats you on the shoulder and starts to move off. "Gotta find Dana. I'll catch you later."

"Bye, idiot," you mutter under your breath as you watch him round the corner purposefully, clutching your clothes from the night before in your arms as the morning slowly brightens around you.

You reach your cabin just as Mitchie is stirring, the first of your friends to wake.

"Tess," she says sleepily, and you hurry over to your bed and hastily slip from his shirt into your outfit for the day, smiling as Mitchie stumbles out from under her covers and over to the bathroom.

"How come you're up so early?" she inquires through a yawn as you bend over in front of the mirror to attack your hair, beginning to rummage around in her trunk.

"Couldn't sleep," you lie happily, yanking out a particularly stubborn knot. "I decided to take a walk."

"I should probably exercise more," she muses as Caitlyn staggers through to the bathroom like a zombie, ignoring the both of you. "I don't really do enough."

You cede the mirror to her as she comes over, smearing some lip-gloss on professionally and then examining your fringe in your compact.

"Morning, Cait," you say as Caitlyn returns from the bathroom, looking like death. "How's life treating you?"

"Don't even," she says threateningly, and you and Mitchie exchange a look before bursting out into laughter.

* * *

The whole day is a campaign of furtive looks and secret brushings of skin and private smiles until the night when you, cloaked in darkness, can sneak from your cabin back into his.

He's waiting for you by the window, the usual cup of tea in his hands, and the minute you come in you steal it off him – just like normal.

"Tess," he says, and you can tell instantly that he's in a serious mood tonight. "We need to talk."

"Can't we just –" you begin hopefully, but he cuts you off.

"No. I need… my conscience has finally caught up with me. I can't keep treating you like this. It's wrong."

He looks all set to work himself up into full panic-rant mode, flinging himself dramatically into an armchair and staring up at you beseechingly, mouth open ready to continue, so you move over and straddle his lap.

"Stop talking," you say in exasperation, your fingers tracing the side of his face tenderly as his hands drift to anchor your hips in place. "I don't give a damn about your conscience."

"Well _I _give a damn about _your _reputation," he retorts, his breath hitching as you drop your face to ghost kisses on the side of his neck. "And it won't be long now until people start talking."

"Let them talk," you reply, your fingertips drifting towards the buttons on his shirt. "I don't care."

"Tess," he replies gently, capturing your small fingers in his large ones, raising your chin with his free hand so he can look you in the eye. "If the media find out, they'll _destroy _you. Both your career and your mother's will be in pieces. I can't let that happen."

"Oh, come on," you wheedle, shifting in his lap and smiling your prettiest smile. "You know how good I am at keeping secrets. We've been doing… _this_… almost a year now, and it's not got out before."

"But now Nate is suspicious," he informs you, and this makes you pause.

"Oh," you say after a short while, and then you sigh and smile. "But it doesn't matter, I won't let him find anything out."

"But he _might_," he argues, and you sigh and clamber to your feet, reclaiming your abandoned cup of tea from the table.

"Your lack of faith in my ability to lie is a little disheartening," you complain, blowing your fringe out of your eyes as he regards you, sprawled in the armchair like a shipwrecked sailor.

"I can't risk it, Tess," he tells you firmly. "Not for me, but for _you_."

"And just the smallest bit for you," you retort, fixing him with an _I-see-right-through-this-bullshit _glare. "Because you'll be forced to close down Camp Rock."

He returns the glare (he learned from the master) and links his hands in his lap, bowing his head and refusing to meet your eyes.

"You think so," he replies quietly, and you take a sip of tea and burn your tongue. "But that's not it at all."

"Oh really?" you say, acting very surprised. "What is it then?"

He raises his face to yours, and there's that _smile _and that _warmth _and that _look _and, really, this is the reason you fell for him in the first place.

"It's you, Tess. It's always been all about you."

You stay very still for a moment, and then very deliberately you cross the room towards him, almost running, and he meets you halfway and it's a tangle of limbs and hair and lips and you give yourself to him, _mindheartsoul_.

"Conscience still bugging you?" you inquire as you part briefly, his shirt halfway off and his eyes glazed with need.

"Not nearly as much as it should be," he replies, and you grin and pull his head down to yours, his hands on your back and in your hair and tracing those thick black lines of sin.

* * *

**A/N**: please don't favourite without reviewing, thank you.


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